The Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 on Tuesday said about 80 passengers who were certified negative after arrival from their various countries of departure later tested positive one week after their arrival.
The taskforce noted that the 80 new cases won’t have been detected if plans were not put in place to conduct second test one week after arrival.
The National Coordinator of the PTF, Dr Sani Aliyu, said at the taskforce’s briefing in Abuja that a significant number of 80 out of the 2,403 tests carried out when the exercise began turned out to be positive.
He said this was despite the fact that the travelers who tested positive arrived in the country with a negative PCR test.
“Of the 2,403 passengers that were tested in Lagos when we started the exercise, 80 were positive. Meanwhile, they had negative COVID-19 PCR test,” he said.
He said the repeat test would have been unnecessary if the country had “a system of enforcement of isolation such that everybody coming into the country self-isolated effectively for two weeks.”
Aliyu also warned foreign travelers to pay to only laboratories on the travel portal of the government for their repeat tests.
Aliyu said, “No Federal Government agency is receiving these funds. The negotiation for the cost is between the state governments and the private labs themselves.
“The charges range between N35,600 for the Kano portal which we are just about to operationalise to N50,400 for Lagos.”
